The controversy as to whether celibacy or wedlock be the happier state is a very old one, perhaps as old as what may be called the previous question—whether life itself be worth living. Some people are very ingenious in making themselves miserable, no matter in what condition of life they find themselves; and there are a sufficient number of querulous celibates as well as over-anxious married people in the world to make us see the wisdom of the sage's words: "Whichever you do, whether you marry or abstain, you will repent." If matrimony has more pleasures and celibacy fewer pains, if loving be "a painful thrill, and not to love more painful still," it is impossible exactly to balance the happiness of these two states, containing respectively more pleasure and more pain, and less pleasure and less pain. "If hopes are dupes, fears may be liars."
It has been said of the state of matrimony that those who are in desire to get out, and those who are out, wish to enter. The more one thinks on the matter in this spirit, the more one becomes convinced that the Scotch minister was by no means an alarmist who thus began an extempore marriage service: "My friends, marriage is a blessing to a few, a curse to many, and a great uncertainty to all. Do ye venture?" After a pause, he repeated with great emphasis, "Do ye venture?" No objection being made to the venture, he then said, "Let's proceed."
With the opinion of this Scotch minister we may compare that of Lord Beaconsfield: "I have often thought that all women should marry, and no men." The Admiral of Castile said, that "he who marries a wife and he who goes to war must necessarily submit to everything that may happen." There will, however, always be young men and maidens who believe that nothing can happen in matrimony that is worse than never to be married at all.
When Joseph Alleine, who was a great student, married, he received a letter of congratulation from an old college friend, who said that he had some thoughts of following his example, but wished to be wary, and would therefore take the freedom of asking him to describe the inconveniences of a married life. Alleine replied, "Thou would'st know the inconveniences of a wife, and I will tell thee. First of all, whereas thou risest constantly at four in the morning, or before, she will keep thee till six; secondly, whereas thou usest to study fourteen hours in the day, she will bring thee to eight or nine; thirdly, whereas thou art wont to forbear one meal at least in the day for thy studies, she will bring thee to thy meat. If these are not mischief enough to affright thee, I know not what thou art." Most people will think that such "inconveniences of a wife" are the strongest arguments in her favour. Nearly all men, but especially bookish men, require the healthy common-sense influence of women to guide and sweetly order their lives. If we make fools of ourselves with them, we are even greater fools without them.
With whatever luxuries a bachelor may be surrounded, he will always find his happiness incomplete unless he has a wife and children to share it.
Who does not sympathize with Leigh Hunt? When in prison he wrote to the governor requesting that "his wife and children might be allowed to be with him in the daytime: that his happiness was bound up in them, and that a separation in respect of abode would be almost as bad to him as tearing his body asunder."
To be, or not to be—married? This is one of those questions in reference to which the speculative reason comes to no certain conclusion. Solvitur ambulando. It has nearly distracted some men, whose minds were sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. They have almost died of indecision, like the donkey between two exactly similar bundles of hay. An individual of this description, who was well known to the writer, after dropping into a letter-pillar a proposal to a young lady, was seen a few moments afterwards endeavouring to extract with a stick the precious document. Failing in his attempt, the wretched mortal walked round and round the pillar, tortured with the recurrence of reasons against matrimony which he had lately argued away. Fortunately for both parties the lady refused the tempting offer.
And yet this hesitating lover was, perhaps, but a type of many young men of the age. Nowadays, it is often said they are giving up matrimony as if it were some silly old habit suited only to their grandfathers and grandmothers. The complaint is an old one. It was brought against pagan youths more than eighteen hundred years ago, and yet the world has got along. But can all the blame be justly thrown upon the one sex to the exclusion of the other? Have thoughtless extravagance and ignorance of household economy on the part of the ladies no share in deterring the men from making so perilous a venture?
It is said that years ago in Burmah the ladies of the Court met in formal parliament to decide what should be done to cure the increasing aversion of young men to marriage. Their decision was a wise one. They altered, by an order from the palace, the style of dress to be worn by all honest women, reduced the ornaments to be assumed by wives to the fewest and simplest possible, and ordained that at a certain age women should withdraw from the frivolities of fashion and of the fashionable world. Success was the result, and young Burmah went up in a body to the altar.
Robert Burton, in his very quaint and interesting "Anatomy of Melancholy," gives an abstract of all that may be said "to mitigate the miseries of marriage," by Jacobus de Voragine. "Hast thou means? thou hast none to keep and increase it. Hast none? thou hast one to help to get it. Art in prosperity? thine happiness is doubled. Art in adversity? she'll comfort, assist, bear a part of thy burden to make it more tolerable. Art at home? she'll drive away melancholy. Art abroad? she looks after thee going from home, wishes for thee in thine absence, and joyfully welcomes thy return. There's nothing delightsome without society, no society so sweet as matrimony. The band of conjugal love is adamantine. The sweet company of kinsmen increaseth, the number of parents is doubled, of brothers, sisters, nephews. Thou art made a father by a fair and happy issue. Moses curseth the barrenness of matrimony—how much more a single life!" "All this," says Burton, "is true; but how easy a mater is it to answer quite opposite! To exercise myself I will essay. Hast thou means? thou hast one to spend it. Hast none? thy beggary is increased. Art in prosperity? thy happiness is ended. Art in adversity? like Job's wife, she'll aggravate thy misery, vex thy soul, make thy burden intolerable. Art at home? she'll scold thee out of doors. Art abroad? If thou be wise, keep thee so; she'll perhaps graft horns in thine absence, scowl on thee coming home. Nothing gives more content than solitariness, no solitariness like this of a single life. The band of marriage is adamantine—no hope of loosing it; thou art undone. Thy number increaseth; thou shalt be devoured by thy wife's friends. Paul commends marriage, yet he prefers a single life. Is marriage honourable? What an immortal crown belongs to virginity! 'Tis a hazard both ways, I confess, to live single, or to marry; it may be bad, it may be good; as it is a cross and calamity on the one side, so 'tis a sweet delight, an incomparable happiness, a blessed estate, a most unspeakable benefit, a sole content, on the other—'tis all in the proof."